Jan van der Voo

(b. 18 July 1938, The Netherlands)

Pipo de Clown

Jan van der Voo was born in Barendrecht and attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Rotterdam. His first comic was about the construction of the Rotterdam subway, called 'De Metroriet'. It was published in the free local paper De Havenloods. Van der Voo then continued with the comics 'Baldino' and 'De Kleine Hartog' in Olidin, the publication of petrol company Shell.

Pots

In the 1960s, he worked in a studio with Jan Kruis and together they made a great many advertising strips, which were published in Donald Duck and other juvenile magazines. This included 'Max' (voor Mars), 'Tim' (for Treets), 'Bounty Eiland' (for Bounty), 'Koos' (for Kodak), 'Mieke en Wouter' (for Milky Way), 'Sjokoprins' (for De Beukelaer' and 'De Broodversierders' (for De Ruijter). He cooperated with Wim Meuldijk on comics starring 'Pipo de Clown' (1969-73) and 'Ketelbinkie' (1974-79) for the Donald Duck weekly in the 1970s.

Ketelbinkie (Donald Duck 37, 1975)

He was a productive artist for the magazine Sjors during the late 1960s and early 1970s, drawing many covers, puzzles, posters and illustrations. He cooperated on the shortlived Jan Kruis production 'Moeps Pepernoot' in the early issues of the society magazine Story. Together with scripwriter Patty Klein, he made the strip 'Pots' for Okki in 1978.

Advertising comic for Chocoprins, published in Pep

By 1982, Van der Voo emigrated to New Zealand, where he found employment as a political cartoonist with the New Zealand Herald. After a long period of living outside The Netherlands, he returned to his home country in 1997. He became an illustrator for an educational publisher and eventually also returned to comics with the experimental gag series 'Even Een Piraatje', that was published in Myx magazine. In May 2014, the local paper Leeuwarder Courant started publishing Van der Voo's unused 'Piraatje' strips, as well as some new ones. Jan van der Voo received the Bulletje & Boonestaakschaal for his contributions to the Dutch comics field in 2005.